Pop Rocks
by Grav
Summary: It was a boring wooden hut, just like any other prison.


AN: Written for the "give me a line and I'll write you a scene" challenge, at the request of **lyssie**, who asked for _"It was a boring wooden hut, just like any other prison"_ for Lorne and Cadman of Stargate Atlantis.

It was fan theory for a while that Lorne was not with the Atlantis expedition the first year because he was a geologist who was needed in the hunt for naquadah. He was in that one episode, after all. I am keeping it because you can have a lot of fun with a geologist and a munitions expert.

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Spoilers: None

Summary: It was a boring wooden hut, just like any other prison.

* * *

**Pop Rocks**

It was a boring wooden hut, just like any other prison.

Well, not _just_ like any other prison. There had been that stone building on M2X-393, and the enclosure surrounded entirely by a particularly nasty strain of poison ivy on M2C-482. But for the most part, prisons in the Pegasus Galaxy tended to favour the wood and shackles aesthetic, though cultures seemed split on whether to chain their captives to the wall or to a central beam or pole. This particular hut, windowless and bare, seemed to favour a new style altogether: they were just locked in with each other and no other restraints.

For his familiarity with Pegasus prisons, Lorne knew he had mainly Laura Cadman to blame. In fact, with one glaring exception provided by John Sheppard, she was directly responsible for all the time he'd spent attached to architecture in a demeaning fashion. If she wasn't nearly as good at getting out of prisons (or getting him out of prisons) as she was at getting them (or him) in, he would have had her transferred weeks ago, but she was, and so he kept her on his team.

The facts were these: Cadman had noticed a loud popping sound emanating from the woods near the gate as soon as they'd arrived on the planet. She'd barely given Lorne enough time to direct Corporal Sully and Dr. Haeth to stay near the DHD before she'd led him towards the source of the noise. Chain of command was not her strong suit. They hadn't gone more than a few steps into the woods when they noticed a flash of light accompanying each pop, and Lorne had literally pulled her up by her vest to make sure she could see him signal a quiet, stealthy, by the book approach.

In the end, they found themselves peering into a glade so idyllic Lorne could have sworn it had come straight out of a magazine about picnics, save for the lights and noise. A crystal clear waterfall tumbled six or eight feet into a green pond hemmed with white and purple flowers that were not entirely unlike lilies. The pond was surrounded by dark grey rocks, which traveled up the steep slope descended by the waterfall, and disappeared into the river bed above.

It was the rocks that caused the noise. With each splash of water, the rocks burst forth in miniscule fireworks, explosions sending the fine ground sediment into the air. The happily falling water seemed to have no regard for the havoc it wreaked on the pond below, though in fairness to it, the flowers seemed not to care either.

"Major!" Cadman said in an excited whisper. "What ever chemical is in those rocks must explode when it comes into contact with water! Do you have any idea what I could do with – "

"If the rocks explode when they come into contact with water, how come the whole pond doesn't just light up?" The best way to deal with Cadman was always to feign indifference.

"I don't know. You're the geologist!" She whispered back. "Maybe it has to be a little bit of water and too much dilutes the solution or something."

"Fine," he said. "Take a sample. When you get back, you'll have to test it with Rodney."

Whatever her presumably indignant response to _that_ might have been, Lorne never knew, because it was precisely at that moment that they were discovered by the locals and thrown into the wooden prison hut as punishment for trespassing on a sacred fire-water pond.

"Did you hear that Major?" Cadman said as soon as the guard was out of earshot. "_A_ sacred fire-water pond. That means there are _more of them_."

"A lot of good that does us!" he said. "Weir'll probably have to black list the planet because of you _again_, or give up way more in trade than the stone is worth."

"She'll work something out." Cadman said confidently. "Did you happen to hear what the punishment was?"

"Death by starvation."

"Are you any good at spitting?"

"What?"

"Spitting, Major." She said again. "Can you hit a target?"

"Um…I don't know." He admitted.

She grinned at him and pulled out a small sample package from her boot. He hadn't even seen her collect it, so he was willing to be the locals hadn't either, and that's why they hadn't done a more thorough search of her. Very carefully, she ran a line of the rock across the bottom of the door. Then she backed up to the far wall and gestured for Lorne to come and stand beside her.

"Now we spit." She said. "The person who ignites it gets the other's share of ice cream next month."

"I don't think that's fair – " Lorne began, but was cut off by Cadman deciding it was ladies first and spitting across the room.

She missed by quite a bit, falling short by over three feet.

"Your turn!" she said happily. "I think the trick might be to sort of throw yourself forward at the end, and then jerk back really quickly."

This time, he really was going to transfer her. After all, he wouldn't need someone who was an expert at prison breaks if he didn't have someone on his team who always landed him in prison. At her nodded encouragement, he resigned himself to his fate and took his turn, feeling ludicrous and also strangely exultant when he realized he'd spit far enough and missed only a few inches to the right.

"Very good, Major!" Cadman said. "Shall we up the stakes?"

"I think not dying and getting ice cream is enough for me, actually." He replied.

"Spoilsport." She muttered and tried again.

This time she did spit far enough, but missed to the left. He took his turn with no prompting from her at all, and managed to send his spit perfectly across the room so that it connected with the rocks. The results were fairly spectacular. The wooden door and frame shuddered at the force of the blast, and it took them only a few moments to break the weakened planks with their hands in order to make a whole large enough to escape through.

There was quite a bit of shouting coming from the direction of the village.

"Well, Major," she said. "What next?"

"I believe this is usually the part where we run." He replied.

He was pretty sure she laughed all the way back to the gate.

* * *

**finis**

Gravity_Not_Included, August 1, 2009


End file.
